I am Doodlebug, King of the Olde English Bulldogges.
Sweetie: How come you’re so quiet, Lady Human?
Me: I’m just thinking.
Doodlebug: Uh-oh.
MoonCat: A human thinking. Never a good thing. Hide!
Me: No, nothing bad. It’s just another holiday. New Year’s.
Sweetie: Where is its tree?
Me: New Year’s doesn’t get its own tree.
Doodlebug: Poor New Year’s. What does it get?
Me: Some people party. Some people cook a bunch of food. Some people shoot off fireworks. And some people like me are just quiet and think a lot. About the past. About the future.
Sweetie: About the food? Where are those food people? Let’s go New Year with them!
I am Doodlebug, King of the Olde English Bulldogges. What is that laying in your hand, Lady Human?
Sweetie: It looks like…IT IS! ONE OF OUR PARAKEETS!
Me: NO! No, it’s not! Look! Both of our parakeets are still here! Tall Man found this little parakeet outside on the patio fence. He must have flown in and sat down and…passed away.
MoonCat: I had nothing to do with that.
Me: I know, girl. I guess this little guy escaped from his home, wherever that was. He was lost. And it’s been so cold these last few mornings that he just couldn’t make it and…
Doodlebug: He flew here because it was safe.
Me: But it was too late and we didn’t know about him.
MoonCat: And he perched on our fence.
Sweetie: Why did he come here? He could have gone anywhere.
Me: Maybe…
Sweetie: The Great Creator. He knew.
Me: This is so strange. Nothing like this has ever happened to us before.
Doodlebug: Just like when we all came here. Not an accident.
Me: The Lord Jesus said something very interesting about little birds. He said that the fall of even a tiny sparrow doesn’t happen without the Heavenly Father’s notice.
Sweetie: He should have a name. Everyone should have a name.
Me: All right. I’m going to call him ‘Little Tejas’. It’s the name of our home. Texas. It comes from an old Caddoan word that means ‘friend’.
I am Doodlebug, King of the Olde English Bulldogges. Me, first! Me, first!
Me: You first what?
Sweetie: Me first to get the food you have in your hands!
Me: Who says I have food in my hands?
Doodlebug: Aw, Lady Human, the only things you ever have in your hands are food or some mess we made that you just cleaned up. And what you’re carrying right now does not smell like a mess.
Me: Well, it’s not, but it’s not our kind of food either. It’s food for the parakeets.
I am Doodlebug, King of the Olde English Bulldogges.
Sweetie: Uh-oh. Something’s wrong with Lady Human. She’s holding her head and shaking it back and forth.
MoonCat: Is it something I can solve? Cats are great at solving problems and fixing stuff, no matter how badly humans foul things up.
Me: No. It’s just a regular everyday human mess. Confusion. And I’m a little tired. Sometimes I just want a simpler life. Like a bulldog. A simple bulldog life.
Doodlebug: A simple bulldog life? Huh?
Sweetie: Have you been paying attention, Lady Human? You call bulldog lives simple? Somebody get the human one of those word books they call a dictionary. We’ll see who’s simple.
I am Doodlebug, King of the Olde English Bulldogges. Lady Human, we have a problem. That large bird is walking around outside, shooting his mouth off again. I told him to stop, but he ignored my royal authority.
Sweetie: Ma’am, how can you complain about loud mouthery from bulldogs when that loud mouthery is going on from a bird of all things? We are not nearly so irritating.
MoonCat: Loud mouthery? That has to be a bulldog invention. They are the experts in the field of loud and mouths.
Bulldoggy 